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Annabelle (film)
''"Before The Conjuring, there was Annabelle." ''- Film Tagline Annabelle is a 2014 American supernatural horror film directed by John R. Leonetti, produced by James Wan, and written by Gary Dauberman. The film serves as a prequel and a spin-off of the 2013 film ''The Conjuring. ''The film was inspired by a story of a haunted doll named Annabelle, told by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film stars Annabelle Wallis (Mia Form), Ward Horton (John Form), and Alfre Woodard (Evelyn). Annabelle was released worldwide on October 3, 2014. It premiered at the TLC Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, United States. The film grossed over $255.3 million against its $6.5 million production budget. Plot The film starts with the same opening scene from ''The Conjuring, ''in 1970, Debbie, Camilla, and Rick (likely based on Donna, Angie, and Lou) are explaining to Ed and Lorraine Warren about their experiences with a doll named Annabelle, which they strongly believe to be haunted. In 1969, John and Mia Form live in Santa Monica and are expecting their first child. John presents a doll to Mia, which she has been trying to find. Mia loves the gift, and puts it with her collection of dolls. While in bed asleep, Mia is awoken by a sudden scream at their neighbors', the Higgins. When Mia returns home and calls the police like her husband tells her to do, she is attacked by a woman holding her new doll along with a male accomplice. John defends his wife from the man, while the woman locks herself in a near by room and slits her own throat. Police arrive just in time and shoot the male, killing him instantly. Before dying, the woman leaves a bloody symbol drawn on the wall. While holding the doll in her arms, a drop of blood falls onto the doll's face. A news report later shows that the assailants were Annabelle Higgins and her unknown boyfriend. They had brutally murdered Annabelle's parents, and were said to be members of a satanic cult known as the Disciples of the Ram, of which they would worship a demon with horns. Since Annabelle held the doll while dying, Mia asks John to throw it away. Later, after a kitchen fire is caused by the doll, Mia trips on furniture, avoiding the fire, and goes into labor. Mia gives birth to a healthy baby girl, and the couple name her Leah. The family then move into a new apartment in Pasadena. While unpacking her dolls, Mia finds the doll that she had thought was discarded. She decides to regain ownership, and puts the doll back on a shelf with the others she unpacked. A series of strange activities beginTr to plague Mia and her new baby. Upon contacting the detective who was still investigating the brutal murder of the Higgins, Mia learns of Annabelle and her boyfriend's history in a cult that seeks to summon a demon by claiming a soul. Mia goes to a book store run by a woman named Evelyn and determines from a book that the presence haunting her wants Leah's soul. Evelyn explains to Mia that she had a daughter named Ruby that was around Mia's age when she died in a car accident caused by Evelyn herself. She was so distraught and full of guilt that she tried to commit suicide. Though at the same time, she heard Ruby's voice telling her it wasn't her time. The couple then contact their church's priest, Father Perez, who tried to take the doll with him to church to have it examined by mediums. Annabelle's ghost attacks him along with the horned demon creature worshiped by the satanic cult, and the doll disappears. While at the hospital, Perez warns John that it was indeed Annabelle's spirit that caused his injuries, and that he felt how much the demon wants Mia's soul. John immediately rushes home to warn Mia. During another crazed attack, Annabelle appears to levitate, but Mia instead sees the demon holding Annabelle in the air, manipulating its actions. Meanwhile, the demon pushes Evelyn out of Mia's apartment and taunts Mia while taking Leah. Mia tries to kill Annabelle, and asks the demon if there is another way, to which it responds she can offer him her soul. John and Evelyn break through the door and find Mia attempting to jump out the window with Annabelle in her arms. John saves Mia, and tries to talk her out of what she tried to do. Evelyn takes hold of the doll, and decides to sacrifice herself for Leah, hoping it would atone for Ruby's death. She then jumps out of the window with the doll and falls to her death. She is then shown dead at the bottom of the apartment building next to Annabelle in a pool of blood. Leah is then found safe in sound in her crib, and that what Evelyn did worked. When the camera focuses back on the corpse of Evelyn, Annabelle is shown to have disappeared. Six months later, the Forms have moved on with their life, and have not seen the doll since. Elsewhere, the mother of Debbie finds and purchases the doll at a hobby store as a gift for her child. The ending text then reads that the real Annabelle doll resides in a case in Ed and Lorraine Warren's Occult museum and that it is blessed by a priest twice a month to keep the public safe from the evil that the doll possesses. The final shot shows the camera linger on the Annabelle doll, as if it were to make one last move before the screen cuts to black. Cast * Annabelle Wallis as Mia Form * Ward Horton as John Form * Tony Amendola as Father Perez * Alfre Woodard as Evelyn * Kerry O'Malley as Sharron Higgins * Brian Howe as Pete Higgins * Eric Ladin as Detective Clarkin * Ivar Brogger as Dr. Burgher * Gabriel Bateman as Robert * Shiloh Nelson as Nancy * Tree O'Toole as Annabelle Higgins (adult) * Keira Daniels as 7-year-old Annabelle Higgins * Robin Pearson Rose as the Mother * Morganna May as Debbie * Amy Tipton as Camilla * Zach Pappas as Rick * Michelle Romano as Mary * Christopher Shaw as Fuller * Joseph Bishara as Demonic figure Film Trivia * Debbie and Camilla are obviously based on college nurses Donna and Angie, who in real life got into contact with Ed and Lorraine Warren over Annabelle tormenting their friend Lou and causing paranormal as well as unexplained activity through their apartment. * The movie portrays the Annabelle doll as a porcelain doll, but the real Annabelle doll is a large "Raggedy Ann" doll. The Warrens had a special case built for Annabelle inside their Occult museum, where she resides to this day. * The baby mobile hanging over the crib plays the same tune as the music box from The Conjuring. * Alfre Woodard hadn't seen The Conjuring (2013) before she began working on this film. Instead she prepared by researching the true story that inspired the film. * The real Annabelle doll was given to Donna (a college student at the time) by her mother in 1970. Her and her roommate Angie noticed that the doll would move subtlety, then within a few weeks became fully mobile moving from one room to another while they were gone. * A 1963 episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "Living Doll" involves a talking doll given to a young girl by her mother. The doll's innocent vocabulary soon takes a sinister tone, especially towards the girl's cruel stepfather. The girl's mother is named Annabelle. * Ellen DeGeneres lived in the apartment used in the movie. While promoting Annabelle (2014) in her show (Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show: Shia LaBeouf/Gina Rodriguez/Padma Lakshmi/Guest DJ Meghan Trainor (2014)), she explained that: "The apartment in the movie was my first apartment that I moved to in L.A. That was the building I lived in; where they shot the movie. I was watching it going: 'That looks familiar' and it was my building. It was scary back then too." * Ironically, Annabelle is the first name of the actress who plays Mia. * The director of this film is also the cinematographer for Child's Play 3 (1992), a film about a killer doll named Chucky. * In one scene in the movie a building shows a large logo with the name "Barclay". Barclay is the last name of the main character Andy Barclay in the popular Chucky horror movie series, in which the plot also revolves around a possessed doll. * Although supposedly based on true events, and the doll being a real object now kept in the artifacts archive of the Warrens, the end credits state that "The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious." *Morganna May, Zach Pappas, and Joseph Bishara are the only actors to return from the previous film. May and Pappas reprise their roles of Debbie and Rick respectively while Bishara, who portrayed Bathsheba in The Conjuring, plays the Demonic Figure in this film. *Prequel to "The Conjuring" (2013). *In the scene where the main character turns off the record player you can see a dark figure in the reflection of the glass in the picture frame turn it back on. *In the film you see two murderers who break in and go on a rampage to kill the neighbors. In real life, actress Sharon Tate died in the same way while being mentioned towards the beginning of the film as "the family" in which Charles Manson and his followers killed 9 people including Tate while being 9 months pregnant in August 1969, *Highest grossing horror film in the Philippines, surpassing Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). *Director John R. Leonetti and Producer Peter Safran claimed that supernatural phenomena had occurred on the set during filming. *Director John R. Leonetti's first theatrically released film since Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) which was released 17 years prior to this film. *The doll prop used for Annabelle is the same one from the 2013 film 'The Conjuring'. *Annabelle The Doll is one of the famous haunted dolls, next to Robert the doll. *When Mia goes through labor the woman who came to the Warren's with the Annabelle doll (Morganna May) is the one carrying the newly delivered baby. *Annabelle (2014) carries references to the cult classic Rosemary's Baby (1968) starring Mia Farrow as Rosemary and John Cassavetes as Guy, a young couple moving into a new building. The leading characters in Annabelle (2014) are Mia and John. They name their newborn daughter Leah; this is the name of one of the neighbors Rosemary and Guy meet in their new building. Both films also incorporate a dramatic scene involving an elevator. Annabelle (2014) is set in 1969, Rosemary's Baby (1968) in 1966. In 1969 actress Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson Family. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Sharon Tate was married to director Roman Polanski who directed Rosemary's Baby (1968). *When Annabelle is shown being purchased by the woman in the thrift store at the end of the film, the camera pans across the screen to show a Raggedy Ann doll sitting across the room from Annabelle. This is likely an homage to the original Raggedy Ann doll that the film was based on.